23.8.12

Now and then
leaving our holiday residence (see previous post), one of the places we visited
was Tivoli and the famous Villa d’Este with its gardens. (There is a lot more
to see in and around Tivoli, but we arrived rather late in the afternoon - not
easy to get the kids out of the swimming-pool.)

The Villa
d’Este was created during the second half of the 16th century by the
son of the famous Lucrezia Borgia (and grandson of Pope Alexander VI).

The villa…

… has some
fantastic frescoes …

… from
where you can overlook the splendid gardens. The design of the garden, on a
heavy slope, and the hydraulic installations (actually somehow copied from what
the Romans did several centuries earlier) inspired for long many garden
architects all over Europe.

Apart from
the fantastic beauty of the place, the fresh water appearing all over is
perfectly welcome a sunny and hot Italian summer day.

After
having been neglected for a while, but restored during the 19th
century and finally taken over and further restored by the Italian State in
1920, the villa and the garden are now listed as a UNESCO world heritage site
and have been celebrated by poets, painters and musicians, including by Franz Liszt,
who was a frequent guest and wrote “Les Jeux d’Eau à la Villa d’Este”, here interpreted
by George Cziffra.

Mon Dieu, Peter. The place visits like an Italian Versailles palace! The art! The gardens! The fountains! So grand and luxurious... J'adore. Thanks to your photos, I feel I have been there too. Merci! Veronique (French Girl in Seattle)

This place looks amazingly surreal! You did great in capturing the scenery. Absolutely gorgeous. How did you find this place? Can anybody visit it at anytime of the year? Do you have to have some kind of passes? Do we have to pay for them, if we do, how much?

Hi Peter! It looks like you are having a great time on this trip! What an amazing place, both inside and outside the building! I wish I knew about this place when I was in Roma 2 years ago and on my way to Firenze! Next time I'm in Italy I'll have to make a stop in Tivoli! Super beautiful place and just perfect for a hot summer day. Enjoy your trip and thanks for sharing this with us!

Translate

Google+ Followers

Contact me

Subscribe To

Follow by Email

LINK TO MY PREVIOUS BLOG

My previous blog, PHO, was in operation for a year as from March 2007. It contains similar posts as this one, basically talking about different well known or more secrete sites in Paris. You can reach it by clicking HERE.